


and the stars will guide you home

by jingling



Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies), The Hobbit - All Media Types, The Lord of the Rings - All Media Types
Genre: Female Friendship, Female-Centric, Gen, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Self-Discovery
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-16
Updated: 2020-07-16
Packaged: 2021-03-04 23:02:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,130
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25294378
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jingling/pseuds/jingling
Summary: In the aftermath of battle, Tauriel carves out a place for herself in a vast world beyond Mirkwood.
Kudos: 4





	and the stars will guide you home

**Author's Note:**

> I started writing this fic back in 2014 after seeing BOTFA, my love letter to Tauriel, a character I loved so much. It's been sitting in my docs, incomplete at 6.6k words for five and half years, but it's a piece of writing that I've thought about a lot over the years, and I think it's finally time for me to finish it.

Her hands grasped at nothing as Tauriel spun around. She had felt a touch at her waist, and had reacted from only instinct and a lack of rest. The battle had ended days ago, but Tauriel could see every second of him as if it had happened only minutes ago.

As if she still knelt on the cold stone ground, cradling her fallen love in her arms.

The dwarf was lucky that she had left her knives behind. It had not seemed right to bring them to a ceremony honouring lives which had been ripped away in battle. Now, he stumbled back in surprise, one arm flung out, using the wall to steady himself.

“I am sorry,” Tauriel dipped her head slightly, not knowing where to look.

“I am Bofur,” the dwarf replied. “Perhaps you remember me?”

Tauriel’s flickered to his face. He was familiar, yes. This dwarf had been in Bard’s house when she had arrived to heal Kili; the one who had fetched Athelas. “I remember you, Bofur. And I must thank you, however belatedly, for retrieving Athelas that time in Laketown.”

That time, when Kili was alive. That time, when she had saved him.

Bofur seemed to be at a loss for words, and instead gestured forward through the doorway, face somber. “Why do you linger at the door?” he asked. “Did you not come to catch one last memory of Kili before he is returned to stone?”

_One last memory_. She had to choose now; would her last memory of her first love be of his bloodied and cold body, lying in her arms, or would it be of him lying motionless on stone, cleaned up and outfitted as the prince that he was?

Tauriel closed her eyes for a second. Could she bear giving up the chance to see Kili one last time? And for what, the old grievances between their two races that now felt so petty.

When she opened them, she knew the answer. His talisman was somehow in her hand, and she gripped it tight. “I did, but it is not my place to intrude on the rites of your people.”

Bofur looked to the three slabs of raised stone and the dwarves which had already gathered there, then back at Tauriel. He then shrugged. “Come on, let’s go. As sharp as your elf eyes may be, I do not think you’ll be able to catch even a single glimpse from here.”

He strode forward, and Tauriel followed, trying her best to keep her eyes on his back and away from the piercing gaze of all who saw her.

She could see Kili now, and with his face and body clean of all dirt and blood, and his hair washed and re-braided, Tauriel looked upon the prince that Kili did not have the chance to be in life. She knew now that her last memory of him would be of the prince that Kili could have, _should have_ , been.

Regrets fell from her like leaves from a tree in autumn. Kili was young, and he would miss all that he deserved. He was kind, he was thoughtful, and never again would he feel the warmth of another living soul against his skin, neither would he feel the crisp coolness of starlight against his skin, or bathe in the beauty of another fire moon. And with that, Tauriel felt tears fall.

They fell as the speeches began, all in Khuzdul of course. Bofur had asked kindly, when he had reached up to lend her a handkerchief, would she like him to translate a few pieces here and there, but Tauriel did not need to understand the words to partake in their lament.

All she needed were her own memories of him, and the talisman which she clutched still in her hand. The last, the _only_ piece of him that she had.

The Lady Dis was right there, standing in front of the bodies of her family. The talisman rightfully belonged to her, and Tauriel knew that she should return it, or at the very least return it to Kili. But the more she thought of it, the more her heart ached and the more the tears streamed down her face.

She could not give it up, not now and perhaps not ever.

They were nearing the end of the ceremony when the doors to the great hall swung open. There was utter silence as the Elvenking, Thranduil walked in.

He did not stop as he strode right up to the middle stone bed, the one which on top lay Thorin, King Under the Mountain, and pulled a sword from his side. The dwarves rushed forward, and Tauriel flinched away. She took a step back, and then another and another until she was half concealed behind a pillar.

“Thorin Oakenshield,” proclaimed the Elvenking. “You have shown yourself worthy, and thus I return Orcrist to you, ” he announced to a stunned room, and laid the sword gently on Thorin’s chest. “I bid you eternal peace in the halls of your people.”

Tauriel shrank back against the pillar as Thranduil swept past her, but he did not so much as glance her way. He must have noticed her there though, but what reason would he have to acknowledge her, he was no longer her king.

“They’re going to bury him now,” Bofur whispered sadly.

This was her last chance, to place the talisman with him where it belonged.

But as Kili was lowered into stone and ground, Tauriel stood clutching the talisman so hard it hurt between her fingers and palm. He was gone now, dead and gone and she would never see him again.

Kili was mortal, and he had died. And somehow, she must find a way to live on.

* * *

"I did not see your brother at the final resting place of the King Under the Mountain," Tauriel said as she slipped in through the empty doorway, “and it seems that he is not here either."

Sigrid, the elder of the two sisters, placed her arms around her younger sister as if to shield her before even turning her head. When she saw that it was only Tauriel, she relaxed and loosened her grip on little Tilda.

"My brother is out, helping with the rebuilding," Sigrid said, attempting a smile. "Some of the old buildings around here are so unstable he jokes that the orcs did us a favour collapsing them."

Tauriel forced a smile to her face, it was the least she could do for the girl who had accepted her into this home. She gave a short nod before sidestepping the two to enter the room which Bard had given her leave to occupy since the end of the battle, and she had been left adrift among the ruins.

Inside, her few possessions were exactly as she had left them. Her long cloak folded neatly on the table and next to it was the one dagger she had salvaged from the battle. Swiftly, she fastened it back onto her calf. While she felt a strange sort of nakedness without it, it would have been wrong to have turned up to a dwarven funeral armed.

Shaking her cloak out, she draped it around his shoulders and fastened it at the neck.

"Are you leaving, Miss Tauriel?" The girls stood in the doorway, Sigrid in front and little Tilda behind, clutching at her sister's sleeve. The girl was still shy of the elf, though Tauriel often caught her gazing at her when she thought Tauriel was not looking.

Sensing the start to a long conversation, Tauriel stepped back and sat down on the low, rag-covered table that she had been using as a bed. She gestured to the space next to her. "I am. Sit."

Sigrid walked in and sat down next to Tauriel, and tucked Tilda in under her arm on her other side. "Are you going back home with the Elvenking?"

At this, Tauriel felt a jolt of pain course through her. They did not know, they had not heard that she no longer had a home.

"I was banished from the halls of the Elvenking," she said gently. "No longer can I call it my home."

Sigrid sat up straight with indignation, and even little Tilda looked shocked, the tips of her fingers coming up to cover her mouth. “Why?” demanded Sigrid. “You saved our lives!”

“I disobeyed him,” said Tauriel. “Time and time again. My disrespect in this instance was, as you say, perhaps the last straw.” She did not speak of drawing her bow on the King— Tilda was far too young to hear of such a tale. Neither did she speak of the ambiguity of his final four words to her on that rocky hilltop, a poor balm to her shattering heart.

“Our father is to be the King of Dale soon,” said Sigrid tentatively. “If you wish, perhaps he can ask the Elvenking to take you back. I am sure he will not deny you this boon.”

Tauriel smiled, feeling a flicker of warmth lick at her numb heart. But she did not wish for the Bard the Bowman to advocate to the King on her behalf. The alliance between the Elves of Mirkwood and the Men of Dale was a new and fragile thread, and the pride of King Thranduil was a fearsome fearsome thing indeed. “Thank you, Sigrid, but that will not be necessary.”

"You could stay here, then," offered Sigrid quickly, "or if you do not wish to stay with us, I am sure Father will be happy to give you your own house in Dale."

"Thank you, Sigrid," Tauriel replies. "And you too, Tilda. You have been most kind, allowing me to stay in your house and... helping me. But I cannot stay."

“But, where will you go?”

To that, Tauriel has no answer. She had not thought that far. Flashes of colour flickered before her eyes, open fields with nothing but stars overhead, a sunset viewed from the tip of a mountain, a great blood-moon hanging from the pitch night sky. She had heard so many tales of the lands beyond Mirkwood, of which she was bound to no longer.

“To all the places that I have not been,” she answered finally, “I will travel under the stars and under the stars, until I have seen with my own eyes all that I have not yet seen.”

Tauriel had once defied her King to venture beyond his realms, to hunt down the evil which festered there. She had asked Legolas, the dearest of her friends, if they were not too, a part of this world. But now, standing far beyond the reach of Mirkwood, the taste of freedom on her tongue was bitter.

“But won’t it be lonely, Tauriel?”

It was little Tilda was the one who spoke, her voice small and shy, but with all the innocence that only a child could have. The words strike Tauriel to her core, oh how wonderful it would be to have that sort of innocence in her life again.

“Perhaps,” replied Tauriel. “But I am already an _elleth_ grown. Worry not, little one. It should not bother me, too much.”

In all honesty, Tauriel did not know. Six hundred years she had spent in the Halls of the Elvenking with the constant companionship of her teachers, her fellow woodland guards, and Legolas— she did not know how to be alone.

Tilda reached out, and took Tauriel’s hands between hers. The small heat from the child’s hands did not warm Tauriel’s hands, but she felt the touch deeply, a soft enveloping warmth that knit together the frayed edges of her heart. Then Sigrid laid her hands on top of her sister’s, and Tauriel had to close her eyes.

“Stay,” said Sigrid again. “Da will be king soon, and he’s going to rebuild the city. He could use the help of someone like you.”

That was true. A city guard would need to be established and trained, they would need more healers, to set up a hospital— there were still so many injured from the battle, and even if the one Tauriel had wished to save most was beyond her help, there were others that were still in need.

Her mind whirled with possibilities, distracted for the first time from what she had not done to what she still could do.

Then she met little Tilda’s eyes, the child’s gaze full of admiration and hope. She had not realised it before, so lost in her grief. She offered the girl a small, tentative smile and Tilda’s face broke into an image of pure, undiluted joy.

Yes, thought Tauriel. Perhaps here, she could stay for a while.


End file.
